Can nuclear deliver for India? The SHANTI Bill raises tough questions

The SHANTI Bill opens the door to private participation but it may not transform India's nuclear energy future

The SHANTI Bill brings nuclear power back into public discourse. The conversation around nuclear energy involves fact, fiction, perception, and the art of the possible. If the Bill goes through without changes, the private sector can invest up to 49 per cent equity in nuclear power companies. It also caps civil liability for nuclear incidents at around ₹3,000 crore, with the government providing a backstop beyond that. The Bill breaks the monopoly of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India and offers private players some assurance. 

The policy thrust is now towards small modular reactors (SMR). The target is to get SMRs with local technology up and running by 2033, with a target of 100 Gw nuclear capacity by 2047. Extrapolating from buildouts of other technologies, 100 Gw would be about 5 per cent of the total electricity capacity by 2047. 

Current nuclear installed capacity is about 1.5  per cent of total grid capacity and much of it is inoperative for long periods. Nuclear contributes less than 7 Gw to a grid, which generates 240 Gw. Nuclear projects tend to see massive time and cost overruns. The 2033 SMR target may not be met, and the 2047 target is also probably out of reach. 

Nuclear costs ₹6 per unit, which is about 150 per cent higher than coal-thermal power, and nearly twice that of solar. Scale may make a difference as it did with solar, where costs dropped drastically. But nobody will happily opt for nuclear at these prices. 

Civil society hates nuclear. Given disasters like Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island, there’s reason to believe there would be sustained opposition to nuclear projects. Protests have happened with projects like Kudankulam. Even charging 9,000 activists with sedition, as happened in that instance, didn’t stop the protests. Also, if any nuclear incident does occur, it will require many multiples of ₹3 000 crore to clean up. 

So, why opt for nuclear? One reason is decarbonisation. Nuclear reactions don’t release carbon. Another key reason is base-load reliability. Once a nuclear reactor is operating, it can run continuously like a thermal plant, and unlike solar or wind. 

Indeed, in many ways, the principles for running nuclear power are similar to those for thermal power. In both cases, water is heated — by coal, gas, or nuclear reactions — to produce steam. The steam is used to drive turbines, and the kinetic energy from the movement of fan blades is converted into electricity. 

Instead of producing smoky, high-carbon waste however, nuclear reactions produce radiation. The spent fuel may also be highly toxic. Storage and disposal of fuel is a big question mark, since it may be toxic for centuries. Moreover, some fuels (depending on the specifics of technology) can be reprocessed to weapons grade, which results in geopolitical complications. Also, due to radiation, shutting down an old nuclear reactor is a painful and costly exercise. 

India is import-dependent when it comes to uranium (variants of which are used as fuel). It would be importing fuel, unless and until there’s some technical breakthrough that makes thorium reactors commercially viable (India has ample thorium). Geopolitics is, therefore, relevant. 

Note also that the cost of nuclear power (the ₹6/ unit referred to above) doesn’t take fuel reprocessing, disposal and the mothballing of superannuated reactors into account. Those may add enormously to costs. 

So in a perfect scenario, India would run SMRs within the next decade with its own indigenous technology. It would have 100 Gw of operational nuclear capacity by 2047, which would marginally reduce carbon production. There would be no accidents, and no civil society protests. The art of the possible suggests this chain of events is unlikely. 

There is one black swan possibility that could alter everything. That would be a big breakthrough on the fusion front. All commercial nuclear power comes from fission, which involves breaking up complex atoms of heavy elements, into lighter elements, with excess particles converted into energy. 

Fusion — turning simple elements into more complex ones with excess particles released as energy — releases much less radiation, while also being zero-carbon. It would also produce more power. But nobody has yet been able to demonstrate fusion is commercially viable, despite 75 years of research and development.  A fusion breakthrough would suddenly solve the world’s energy problems, and if there is a fusion breakthrough, Shanti would leave India better-placed in regulatory terms to exploit it.